A Few Cards On Much Ado

Italian who wrote _The Book of the Courtier_ a well known book of advice for Renaissance men and women who frequented the king’s court

Sprezzatura

the ability to accomplish a task so skillfully as to mask the effort put into it; in Sidney’s words, it is “the ability to write a sonnet while falling off a horse.”

cuckold

a man whose wife cheats on him and who figuratively speaking grows horns

bastard brother of Don Pedro

Don John

What three meanings can “nothing” have in the title “Much Ado about Nothing”

nothing meaning 0; nothing meaning no thing (= no penis–much ado about a woman’s chastity, her vagina); and nothing meaning noting as in observing or watching others

Who is the constable who cannot get his words straight in _Much Ado_

Dogberry

Who says to Beatrice, “Why, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?”

Benedick

What does it mean for a woman to lead apes into hell?

that she is an old maid

Explain the double meaning when Beatrice asks the messenger referring to Benedick whether Signor Montanto returned from the wars or no.

Montanto means an upward thrust. She’s referring to his hautiness but also making a sexual reference.

How is Hero made to look like an unchaste woman the night before her wedding?

Borachio woos her servant Margaret beneath her bedroom window.

Who says the following: “O that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass. Though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass.”

Dogberry

Who demands of whom on whose behalf: “Hand her an epitaph upon her tomb / And sing it to her bones, sing it tonight.”

Leonato of Claudio for Hero.

Who claims, “I was not born under a rhyming planet, nor I cannot woo in festival terms.”

Benedick

Who self-righteously proclaims;”Give not this rotten orange to your friend.She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour.Behold how like a maid she blushes here!O, what authority and show of truthCan cunning sin cover itself withal!”